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SUMMARY: Other computer modeling efforts have also predicted that
hurricanes will grow stronger and wetter as a result of global
warming. But this study is particularly significant, independent
experts said, because it used half a dozen computer simulations of
global climate, devised by separate groups at institutions around the
world. The long-term trends it identifies are independent of the
normal lulls and surges in hurricane activity that have been on
display in recent decades.

* The new study of hurricanes and warming "is by far and away the most
comprehensive effort" to assess the question using powerful computer
simulations, said Dr. Kerry A. Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has seen the paper but did
not work on it. About the link between the warming of tropical oceans
and storm intensity, he said, "This clinches the issue."

* With almost every combination of greenhouse-warmed oceans and
atmosphere and formulas for storm dynamics, the results were the same:
more powerful storms and more rainfall

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Global Warming Is Expected to Raise Hurricane Intensity
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Published: September 30, 2004

Global warming is likely to produce a significant increase in the
intensity and rainfall of hurricanes in coming decades, according to
the most comprehensive computer analysis done so far.

By the 2080's, seas warmed by rising atmospheric concentrations of
heat-trapping greenhouse gases could cause a typical hurricane to
intensify about an extra half step on the five-step scale of
destructive power, says the study, done on supercomputers at the
Commerce Department's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in
Princeton, N.J. And rainfall up to 60 miles from the core would be
nearly 20 percent more intense.

Other computer modeling efforts have also predicted that hurricanes
will grow stronger and wetter as a result of global warming. But this
study is particularly significant, independent experts said, because
it used half a dozen computer simulations of global climate, devised
by separate groups at institutions around the world. The long-term
trends it identifies are independent of the normal lulls and surges in
hurricane activity that have been on display in recent decades.

The study, published online on Tuesday by The Journal of Climate, is
at www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/2004/tk0401.pdf.

The new study of hurricanes and warming "is by far and away the most
comprehensive effort" to assess the question using powerful computer
simulations, said Dr. Kerry A. Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has seen the paper but did
not work on it. About the link between the warming of tropical oceans
and storm intensity, he said, "This clinches the issue."

Dr. Emanuel and the study's authors cautioned that it was too soon to
know whether hurricanes would form more or less frequently in a warmer
world. Even as seas warm, for example, accelerating high-level winds
can shred the towering cloud formations of a tropical storm.

But the authors said that even if the number of storms simply stayed
the same, the increased intensity would substantially increase their
potential for destruction.

Experts also said that rising sea levels caused by global warming
would lead to more flooding from hurricanes - a point underlined at
the United Nations this week by leaders of several small island
nations, who pleaded for more attention to the potential for
devastation from tidal surges.

The new study used four climate centers' mathematical approximations
of the physics by which ocean heat fuels tropical storms.

With almost every combination of greenhouse-warmed oceans and
atmosphere and formulas for storm dynamics, the results were the same:
more powerful storms and more rainfall, said Robert Tuleya, one of the
paper's two authors. He is a hurricane expert who recently retired
after 31 years at the fluid dynamics laboratory and teaches at Old
Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. The other author was Dr. Thomas R.
Knutson of the Princeton laboratory.

Altogether, the researchers spawned around 1,300 virtual hurricanes
using a more powerful version of the same supercomputer simulations
that generates Commerce Department forecasts of the tracks and
behavior of real hurricanes.

Dr. James B. Elsner, a hurricane expert at Florida State University
who was among the first to predict the recent surge in Atlantic storm
activity, said the new study was a significant step in examining the
impacts of a warmer future.

But like Dr. Emanuel, he also emphasized that the extraordinary
complexity of the oceans and atmosphere made any scientific progress
"baby steps toward a final answer."


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/30/science/30hurricane.html


DON'T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION:

http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/involved.html
http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp
http://www.greenhousenet.org/
http://www.solarcatalyst.com/

Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org
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